Aid group warns of 'alarming' humanitarian situation in South Sudan

Civilians are increasingly getting caught up in South Sudan’s spiraling violence, aid agency Doctors Without Borders said Friday, warning of an "alarming humanitarian situation" developing in the country.

"We have seen an escalated and continued use of violence against civilians,” said Paul Critchley, head of mission at the organization, which goes by its French acronym of MSF. “Medical care and essential humanitarian care has been reduced. Hospitals have been closed, medical staff have been evacuated."

His comments come amid fighting between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and his rival Riek Machar, with government tanks and military helicopters pushing back rebels from a key oil town, according to state television footage. 

MSF, which has treated victims suffering gunshot wounds in the country as well as tending to medical needs related to tuberculosis and pregnancy, said that an upsurge of violence in three South Sudanese states — Unity, Jonglei and Upper Nile — has resulted in the "suspension of medical services, destruction of health structures and evacuation of medical staff," leaving thousands of people without medical care.

“The increase in violence in the three states ... is causing a horrible humanitarian situation," Critchley told Al Jazeera on Friday.

Amnesty International said Thursday it had spoken to witnesses in Unity state who said government troops have been burning villages, abducting children and raping women in an ongoing offensive against rebels. Peace talks between the warring factions have repeatedly collapsed. 

Fighting broke out in December 2013 when President Kiir accused Machar, his former deputy, of attempting a coup, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings across the country.

In the latest round of violence, tanks were shown on state television Friday, firing as a helicopter gunship — believed to belong to the Ugandan army, which is fighting alongside government troops — swooped over the burning town of Melut in the key northern oil state of Upper Nile.

Melut lies some 20 miles west of the main oil production base at Palouch, which rebels are trying to capture. Its loss would be a crippling blow to South Sudan's already struggling economy.

The government assault that began in late April is one of the heaviest offensives in the 17-month long civil war and has cut off over 650,000 people from aid, according to the United Nations and aid agencies. Many have been forced to flee to U.N.-protected camps in Unity state. 

Rebels last week launched a major counter-attack, including an assault on Malakal, the state capital of Upper Nile and the gateway to the country's last remaining major oil fields.

As a result of the violence, MSF has been forced to abandon its hospital in the town of Leer, in southern Unity State, and pull back into U.N. bases in Malakal and Melut. In Jonglei, an MSF team discovered the town of New Fangak "had effectively been destroyed, with trees and homes burnt to the ground and school buildings flattened," Critchley said.

"People that have been displaced in this round of fighting have left their homes at a time when they should be planting crops, planting food," he told Al Jazeera. "This is the start of what would be called the 'hunger gap,' when people run out of food and waiting for their next crops to be harvested. So if they’re displaced, they’re not planting food. They’re not just short of food now, they’ll be short of food in the future."

Al Jazeera and wire services. Al Jazeera's Catherine Soi contributed to this report.